First, Special
by Montana Magic
Summary: They were designed in labs to be soldiers. Trained to fight. In the middle of the night they escaped and had to run for their lives. This is their story. - - - Really, really alternate universe - - -


Disclaimer: Not mine. It's very confusing as to who belongs to whom right now. I'll in depth at the end of the last chapter. For right now we'll say that the characters belong to their respective owners.

Timeframe/Spoilers: Spoilers, I really don't know, I could mention anything in Dark Angel (DA). I'm really not sure how far this story is gonna go, but I like it. The timeframe is from the last few episodes of DA season 1. And I'm not sure for IAHB. You can read DA scripts at http://www.darkangelfan.net if you wanna know more about the DA world.

Author's Note: This is a crossover between the shows Dark Angel and In A Heartbeat. Even if you don't watch Dark Angel, I ask you to give this story a try. I've tried to explain most of the DA world in the prologue thing. But if you have any questions you can e-mail me and I'll go more in depth for you. This is the first really non-romance story I've written. There will be a little bit of it, but not an emphasis on it like in my other stories. Which brings me to another point I need to make. I haven't forgotten about any stories yet, and I've never not finished one and I'm not about to start now. If you want the long explanation as to why I haven't written much recently you can E-mail me. And I assure you I've got a pretty good reason.

Why: I chose to do this particular crossover because I like strange and unusual stuff. And I really just felt like doing it. And I had one more really good reason, but I can't remember it, so . . . Insert good reason here: .

Title: I should explain my title too. It's a little joke on the show(DA) Joshua (Half dog/half man) is First, Special. He was the first transgenic created and is the only one without a barcode. I like him and if people really like this story I'll bring him in. There's a distinct way I can turn this whole thing into two different stories. It's also called "First, Special" because it's the first DA/IAHB crossover ( And possible the only), and it's special to me. Don't know why, it just it. The title was just a little joke to me that happened to stick. 

****

Prologue

They were trained as soldiers, trained to fight, trained to kill. They were created in test tubes, genetically engineered in a covert government facility called Manticore. They were genetically enhanced for superior strength and speed. They're transgenics. Some don't look at all human, others, known as the X-series, look just like us. Each were given a barcode on the backs of their necks to identify them. One X5 unit gave themselves names instead of numbers. In February of 2009 twelve members of that unit escaped. A few months later they got lucky. Terrorists set off an electromagnetic pulse, frying all of the computers and turning the US into a third world country overnight. It made it easier for them to hide who they were, even from those they are closest to. They didn't know who to trust then, and now, in 2020 they still don't know who to trust. But one thing's for sure, they will never stop looking until they find each other. 

****

Chapter One

"We have to tell him." Insisted Caitie.

"It's risking tactical exposure, you know that." Argued Jamie.

"If we tell him, he'll know to keep his mouth shut about it. And he'll know why he has to." Caitie tried to reason.

"No." Insisted Jamie.

"You're not my CO. Tyler's my husband and I trust him. I should have told him this before things got serious. Besides, he _saw_ us."

"I may not be commanding officer, but I am your brother." Jamie reminded her. 

"Only because we were in the same unit." Snapped Caitie. It was a low blow.

"Ouch." Commented Jamie dryly. "You know you don't mean that. Just because we're not genetically related doesn't mean we're not family. The kids in our unit were the closest thing we had to brothers and sisters."

"Well, Tyler's my family too. When he comes out of the shower I'm going to tell him. You can be here or you can leave, it's up to you." Snapped Caitie. Jamie silently walked to the side of the room, crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall, scowling.

A few minutes later Tyler came into the living room of his and Caitie's run-down apartment. It was actually one of the nicer places to live in LA. 

"Are you going to explain what happened tonight?" Asked Tyler, sounding slightly defensive. He accepted the ice pack that Caitie handed him. He held it to his jaw. He knew that she and Jamie were hiding something. Something big. They had to be, otherwise they couldn't have pulled off what they did on the way home. The first thing he did was take a shower so that he could have a little time to himself to think about what he'd seen. He couldn't begin to fathom what they were going to tell him, but he knew it would change their lives. Whether it would be a good change was still to be seen. He didn't know what to expect as he sat down on the couch next to Caitie. Not as close as he usually would have, but he was still close to her.

Caitie took a deep breath and told Tyler everything. About what she was, that she was a transgenic. She told him about Manticore. And about the escape. About who she really was.

"We were just nine at the time. It was Zack's idea. At Manticore we weren't people, we were soldiers. Our sole purpose in life was to kill." Caitie paused to see how Tyler was taking what she said. His face was blank. Normally she could tell what he was thinking, but this time was different. She decided to continue. "He made us all split up right after we got out. Zack said it would be safer that way. I've been looking for my brothers and sisters for the past eleven years."

"Brothers and sisters?" Asked Tyler. "You're a transgenic too, aren't you." Accused Tyler, locking his eyes on Jamie. He sounded pissed, he didn't mean to, he just did. Jamie was Caitie's brother who had shown up unexpectedly about two months ago. According to Caitie, he'd already been living in LA, he just needed 'a change of scenery.'

"Yes. And if you tell anyone about any of this I can kill you in more ways than you could ever imagine." Threatened Jamie.

"Point taken. Have you hooked up with anyone else from this Manticore place?"

"We ran into Jondy a few months ago. You know her as Brianne though." If Tyler thought about it long enough, it made sense. She had shown up in LA with Jamie, Claiming to have gone to high school with the two of them. Jamie claimed he had met her in a coffee shop and they'd become friends again and he'd offered her a ride to LA with him.

Caitie slowly pulled her hair back to reveal a barcode on the back of her neck. 

"This is how Manticore kept track of us. See, they didn't bother naming us all. They just stamped a number into our DNA code." Replied Caitie bitterly. 

"We weren't people, just barcodes with numbers attached." Said Jamie quietly, matching Caitie's bitter tone perfectly.

"What's your number?" Tyler asked Caitie.

* * * Flashback * * *

They were in a room. About thirty kids around age nine standing in line in army camouflage. Their feet shoulder width apart, hands behind their backs. An officer, in his late forties paced in front of them.

"State your designation!" He ordered, stopping in front of a random kid. A young girl.

She automatically brought her feet together and saluted him. "Yes Sir! X5-483, Sir!" She replied promptly.

"At ease." Said the officer before moving on to another X5. She went back to her original standing position.

* * * End Flashback * * *

"My designation was X5-483." Replied Caitie, fighting the urge to salute. Even being free of Manticore for eleven years hadn't completely gotten it out of her system. "But to my unit my name was AJ."

"Our unit didn't like being seen as numbers. So we gave each other names, maybe to make us feel more like people instead of just soldiers, I don't know." Replied Jamie bitterly. Tyler got the feeling that he would always be bitter about Manticore.

"What was your name?"

"I was Ben. X5-682." Replied Jamie after a moments hesitation. He figured it wouldn't hurt to tell Tyler. Besides they had an unspoken understanding. Tyler breathed a word about Manticore and he became an organ donor.

"What's X5?"

"That's kinda like our class. Manticore's probably all the way to X7's by now. Each class is a little bit better than the one before. They've put down just about every member of the X-series before the X5's because none of them were ever quite right." Explained Jamie.

"Why did you change you names?"

"Manticore knew what we called each other, keeping our names would have just made it that much easier for them to find us." Said Caitie. "I swear, the twelve of us that got out are probably the only people in the United States that are grateful for the Pulse."

"It's easier to hide in a third world country." Added Jamie.

"Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" Asked Tyler quietly.

"That's my cue to leave." Said Jamie as he was walking to the door. He didn't mind a confrontation as long as he got to kick someone's ass. He didn't do verbal confrontations, unless you counted the smart ass comments he made while kicking ass, which he didn't

"I was afraid of what you would think." Replied Caitie quietly. She jumped up and started pacing in the tiny living room. Their apartment consisted of a bedroom, a bathroom, kitchen and a living room. There wasn't actually a wall between the kitchen and living room. Nothing these days were nice, but as far as places went in post-pulse America, they had it pretty good. Tyler's family was loaded and he was working as a paramedic while Caitie was a journalist. "I love you and I don't want to lose you." She said, confessing her worst fear.

"I won't leave you." He promised her. He stood up and walked over to her and cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. "I love you, you're still the same person you were when I married you."

"I won't go back there, I'd rather die than go back to Manticore. It was Hell."

"Is Jamie going to tell Val about this?" Asked Tyler. Naming the girl Jamie had been going out with since he'd gotten to LA three months ago. Val was also a close friend to Tyler and Caitie.

"No, definitely not. He was against telling you, but you deserved an explanation. And he sees any outsiders knowing about us as tactical exposure."

"So, you're genetically enhanced. What kind of stuff can you do?" Asked Tyler, trying to lighten the mood.

"I can jump about twenty feet in the air and run about twice as fast as a normal person for starters." Said Caitie. "I can also take out three guys at least twice my weight without breaking a sweat."

"That I knew." Replied Tyler trailing off a little. He was remembering why Jamie and Caitie had been forced to show off their talents.

* * * Flashback * * *

"Let's get out of here." Suggested Caitie. They were at Riot.

"Yeah, city curfew's in half an hour." Agreed Tyler.

"One more drink." Suggested Val

"You don't need it." Declared Jamie when Val stood up and stumbled slightly. Jamie put an arm around Val's shoulders to help keep her standing as they left the bar.

"Will you be alright alone?" Asked Jamie when he dropped Val off at her apartment.

"Hank and Brianne are here." Reassured Val, not sounding anywhere near as dunk as someone would have thought. The three of them shared an apartment. Val, Hank, and Tyler worked together as paramedics and Brianne was a bartender at Riot. Jamie was a mechanic at Pete's Garage and lived a few blocks away from Tyler and Caitie.

"Night, Val." Said Jamie. He gave her a quick kiss goodnight.

They were walking down an almost deserted street when someone jumped out in front of them, grabbing Caitie. He was about five feet, seven inches and looked to be about 180 pounds.

"Give us all your money, or the girl gets it." Ordered Thug Guy.

"Who's we?" Demanded Tyler as five more guys stepped out of the shadows. They were each easily 250 pounds.

"How come you're the leader?" Jamie asked Thug Guy One almost mockingly. He just sneered at Jamie. "I mean any one of them could easily take you out."

Caitie heard Thug Guy cock a gun a felt him press it against her temple.

"I see." Said Jamie in the same mocking tone. Even though he really didn't, just about everyone he knew already had a gun. He wouldn't be surprised if he saw a few nuns with guns. If you wanted to do something illegal, you could get a cop to look the other way. If you had the cash.

"Enough chatting." Growled one of the guys. He held a gun to Tyler's head, and Tyler slowly put his hands up. Meanwhile a third guy pointed a gun at Jamie's forehead, only difference was that he was about five feet away.

"Empty you pockets." The leader ordered, he jerked his head towards the other three guys, indicating that they should throw their wallets to them. Tyler and Caitie took out their money and threw it at their feet. Jamie slowly shrugged off his leather jacket and tossed it towards them.

"My wallet's in there." One of the guys searched the pockets, pocketed Jamie's money, threw his jacket back to the ground and dug his heal into it. Caitie could almost see her brother cringing, that was his favorite jacket.

Jamie rushed forward and grabbed the gun trained on him. At least that's what Tyler thought he had done. He didn't actually see Jamie move, even though his eyes hadn't left his direction. Tyler decided to use his captor's distraction to his advantage. He ground his foot into his attacker's, elbowed him in the stomach and spun away. He managed to land a few punches, but really only succeeded in pissing him off. The guy managed to knock Tyler unconscious.

"That's my husband!" Yelled Caitie, taking out her rage by bringing her fist back and breaking her captor's nose. While he was distracted she wrenched the gun out of his hand and emptied the bullets out of it. Jamie did the same. They dumped the guns into a trash dumpster nearby. The last gunman still had his gun trained on Jamie. Caitie had somehow managed to sneak up behind the guy and get the gun away from him. She put it with the others.

"I'd say the odds just tipped in out favor." Declared Caitie.

"I'd look around again. It's six on two."

"Then I'd say we had an even better chance." Said Jamie. Without warning two if the guys rushed at Jamie and Caitie. At almost the exact same time they jumped up into the air, delivered a kick to the guys chests and knocked them out before they slammed into the side of a building.

"Four on two now." Smirked Caitie. Two guys rushed at Jamie and the other two threw punches at Caitie, who easily blocked them. 

Jamie wasn't quite as lucky, one of the Thugs had gotten his arms around Jamie's neck and was choking him. Then Thug Two punched Jamie in the nose.

"Now I'm mad." Declared Jamie the best he could with a man trying to choke him. He did a back flip, letting his foot connect with Thug Two's chin. The back flip also let Jamie breathe again. He slammed Thug One into the ground with the momentum he picked up from the back flip.

"Success." He muttered as he saw the two guys he'd just knocked out unconscious in addition to the two from before. He turned to help Caitie, but she looked like she was doing fine on her own. And he wasn't sure, but he could almost swear she was grinning. He knew better than to interfere. The last time he'd interfered with Caitie and a fight, she'd sent him to the hospital in need of stitches and the only this she'd talk to him about for the week after was how men and women were equal and women could do anything men could do. 

Thug Guy Three threw a punch at Caitie, but she'd already hit the ground. She used his own momentum against him as she swept her foot around, knocking his legs out from under him. Caitie heard him hit the ground with a thud. The last guy standing was almost on top of her, but she elbowed him in the nose, jumped up, and spun around to knee him in the groin. When he was hunched over, Caitie slammed her elbow between his shoulder blades hard enough to knock him unconscious.

They were so wrapped up in their fight that they hadn't seen Tyler stand up. 

"Get our wallets." Said Jamie. "And their's too while you're at it."

"What the hell was that?!" Demanded Tyler, rubbing his jaw slightly.

"They were gonna steal from us." Explained Jamie, assuming that Tyler meant taking their wallets. "The way I see it, stealing from a thief isn't exactly stealing."

"That's not what I meant. I just saw you take out six guys twice your size without breaking a sweat in less that eight minutes."

"I took karate when I was younger." Jamie offered in explanation.

"I don't think so." Accused Tyler.

"We'll explain when we get home." Promised Caitie.

* * * End Flashback * * * 

"Tyler." Said Caitie softly, resting a hand on his shoulder.

"Sorry, I was just thinking about stuff."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you this sooner." Said Caitie quickly. "I promised myself that I would tell you if we ever got married. But I was scared."

"I know, and I understand." 

"But it's not okay." Continued Caitie.

"You're still the same person I married. You're still the same person I fell in love with." Tyler reassured Caitie. "It's gonna take some getting used to, but I will." Tyler sat down on the couch and pulled Caitie with him.

"You're taking this better than I though you would." Commented Caitie.

"I love you, remember."

***

He rolled over and looked at his alarm clock. The luminescent numbers told him that it was 3:00 am. He cursed his shark DNA, it kept him from sleeping when he wanted to. Admittedly, times when he wanted to sleep were few and far between, normally he loved the night. It was peaceful. He hardly ever needed to sleep physically, it was more of a need to sleep emotionally or mentally. He just needed to shut out everything and sleep for a few hours. 

"Maybe eating something will help." He muttered to himself and dragged himself out of bed. He fixed himself a sandwich and a glass of milk.

That's when the shaking started. It was mild at first, but it got stronger within minutes. He quickly finished off the glass of milk, his sandwich forgotten. The milk had Tryptophan in it, the only thing that helped. 

He filled up a glass again, only this time with water and started looking through the cupboard for his Tryptophan pills. Sure, milk had Tryptophan in it, but it wasn't enough to stop a full blown seizure, just postpone it for awhile. The X5's were almost perfect, their only defect was the seizures. Fortunately for them there were warning signs to the seizures. Usually they started shaking a little before the full seizure hit.

"Found it." He whispered, just as the actual seizure started. He had a little trouble opening the bottle because his hand was shaking, but he managed it. He popped a few pills into his mouth followed by a sip of water. He forced himself to swallow. He dropped the glass of water that was still in his hand. It shattered, but he didn't notice. He was shaking violently by now. He slid down onto the floor and leaned against the refrigerator. He drew his knees up to his chin and waited for the Tryptophan to take effect. 

Author's Note Number Two: I'm tired and I want to go to bed. If you want a list of stuff I'm writing you can find it at my profile. I looked over this chapter for any mistakes, but I might have missed some, so point them out (nicely please).

Little side note: If there's anything you don't understand, let me know and I'll put it in a later chapter or e-mail you or put it in an author's note.

'Nother little note: I do know what I'm doing. (This doesn't make sense, I know. But if I explain, I'll ruin some stuff.)

And everyone, do my best friend a favor and go to http://www.free-your-soul.net 

It's another place to share your writing and there some really cool and crazy people there. But I've never met a mean person there. It's a great way to find a beta reader and to get writing help and chat with other authors. (there's message boards) And speaking of beta reading, I'll do it! I'll beta anything except smut.


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